Dance is Not Mere Movement. Dance is Stillness.
Dance is Not Mere Movement. Dance is Stillness. A personal reflection…. “In order to understand dance one must be still. And in order to truly understand stillness one must dance.” By Rumi For many, dance is movement. For me, it is stillness and awareness. Any form of art trains you to observe deeply, honestly, completely. But dance does something no other art form does quite so completely. It makes your body, your breath, your mind and your emotion arrive at the same place, at the same moment, the Sama (first beat of a taal cycle). The moment everything converges. During my years of training in Kathak, I realized the feet speak during Tatkaar. The emotions in the eyes carry generations of stories. The hands and body give shape to the empty space around you. And before the first tatkaar, before the first glance, before the first beat of the tabla, there is stillness. That stillness is not empty. It is full. It is where everything begins. And it is stillness when everything c...